After moving into my new apartment, the first thing I did, after unpacking, of course, was to place a statue of Ganesh at the entryway. My friend, feng shui master Ariel Towne, says that besides a fountain, the other necessary item near your front door is the little elephant otherwise known as the Remover of Obstacles.

When you don't let negative, sticky energies in, they don't have a chance to affect you. "Cutting them off at the pass" is a phrase that might apply to what Ganesh is doing there at the front door.

Aside from that massive job, Ganesh is also the Lord of Thresholds. Threshold. What a beautiful word. It reminds me of watching wind ripple the wheat fields during my Midwestern childhood. Yet, the concept itself has different meanings, not only describing the doorway itself, but what the doorway represents: a starting point, the beginning of any new journey or transformation.

Ganesh is not some magic statue, without which you would have no protection against resistance, doubt, and fear--three of the biggest obstacles of all. It's the act of placing Ganesh that brings awareness to our own desire to remain free of anything that diminishes or limits our potential to fly. In that sense, he represents that aspect of ourselves that is ready to swing open the door to our next adventure--and ready to step out of our own way long enough to clear the path straight through it.

Henry Ford said, "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal." You see, we have the power to either turn our experiences and truths into obstructions, weights tethered to any possible rise in self-esteem, greater awareness, and health; or to remove them. 

Yogis have fabulous resistance-busting tools. We can get on the mat and practice, opening tight places and dissolving emotional and mental tension. We breathe, switch our thinking, learn to see more clearly and, by deciding to love ourselves a little more, we begin to widen the very doorway into our own hearts. By applying awareness to each situation we encounter, we open a threshold to our core, allowing our deepest wisdom to sweep through, and away, into the world in the form of our most courageous, conscious actions.

In my classes, any time I want to clear the threshold, I ask my students to focus on hip opening. I call the hips "the Gateways," because they can allow, or block, the energy moving from you foundation into your core. If the gateways are closed, the posture is incomplete and with it, the opportunity to gain the full benefits of the asana is lost. Try the following pose any time you feel a little closed yet feel ready to  make the space you need to cross the threshold into that next, most incredible state of being who you really are.

Core Pose: Funky Lunge  

This posture clears a common tight area--the side leg and outer hips--all the way from the foundation to your center. When you open this gateway, issues like sciatica may recede, since the piriformis muscle at the side of your pelvis often compresses it. As well, you'll open the IT band, making this a wonderful way to free yourself from over-closure of the gateways of the hip muscles and joints and, quite literally, be able to walk through any threshold more freely.

Come into Down Dog. Step your left foot to your right thumb. With this crossed foot placement, you'll bring the right knee to the mat. Center your hips, and come onto palms or fingertips, on the mat or on blocks, so that your hands are under your shoulders.

Begin to roll onto the pinky toe edge of your left foot. As you ground the foot down, and resist it back towards your hip, roll the outer left hip and upper thigh back and down so that it's not hiking up toward your ribcage.

Inhale, lift your lower belly and wave long through your spine. Exhale, and fold at the hip creases as you bend the elbows to your capacity. Play your edge of flexibility as you begin to straighten your front leg until you begin to feel sensation. Breathe and soften there before moving further into your stretch.

If you want more of a challenge, try tucking the back toes under and lifting the back knee as in a Low Lunge. Your hands will walk back to remain under the shoulders for support.

Breathe here for one minute, taking small spinal waves on the inhalation, and deepening your fold on the exhalation. Return to Dog Pose, and switch sides.




 
 

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For a modality whose very title, yoga, means "unity," it sure seems to be chock full of opposites. Our hatha yoga poses are made up of the "sun" (ha) and "moon" (tha). Shiva-Shakti, or ying-yang, symbolize the passive and active parts of our natures, and we're in constant interplay between sthira (effort) and sukha (ease) on and off the mat.

Anatomically, we mirror this duality. Did you know there are no muscles that cross the midline of our bodies? We have the spine in back and the connective strip of the Linea alba in front, which when, you think about it, means that we are really two distinct halves fused together at these junctions.

Spiritually as well, we exist as polar aspects of energy, which make up our total prana, or life force. I'll call these collective energies the shadow and the light. Sometimes (in the cases of love and joy) the energies feel lighter, and other times (like with anger and sorrow), much heavier. Still, any of these energies can be used as pure fodder, fuel that either generates actions that are aligned with us or that steer us sharply from our paths.

Since, in another two-sided element of being, our thoughts and actions can either feel more positive (loving) or negative (hurtful), we might make the misstep of placing value judgments on our feelings, deciding that the lighter energies are "good" and that the shadows are "bad." We want to feel happy and free, and because our dark side may have caused us and others suffering, embarrassment, shame and loss, it's all too seductive to try and live only on the light side of ourselves.

I think it's unfortunate that being a student of yoga is sometimes understood to mean one must be only light and happy, all the time, and to never feel angry, insecure, or vengeful. In my opinion, this idealized state is not spiritual perfection but a delusion of grandeur masquerading as spiritual practice. Being as we're human and divine, it's a great day when we realize that we can be both, and have our yoga, too. Because it's not an absence of shadow feelings that makes one enlightened. It's knowing how to alchemize them into conscious, loving actions once they arise that matters.

Unfortunately, many of us aren't there yet. We've even decided that there is "good" karma and "bad" karma. But when you look at karma as a concept, it's judgment-free. It simply means that this or that choice can be more constructive or more destructive to your ultimate goals.
Add to this information the fact that, often, it's not the shadows themselves that are dysfunctional. It's the way we express them that causes problems. If you shy away from discomfort, in your yoga poses or in life (and if you do one, I can nearly guarantee you do the other), it's likely that you haven't practiced with that dark side as much as you need to in order to become strong and resilient enough to bear its intensity.

In other words, if you haven't done this work, you may be prone to reactivity, where some event, inner or outer, connects you to your shadow energy. Before you know it, you've thrown a glass or hurled hurtful words at a loved one. Or perhaps you react inwardly and act destructively toward yourself, as in blowing an important deadline because you're anxious or shutting yourself down out of fear. Picking fights, being disrespectful, participating in family dramas, gossiping, or using drugs or alcohol to cope with discomfort are all ways we let the dark side predominate. We have confused the reactions to our shadows with the shadows themselves, when in fact they are just energies waiting to be harnessed.

It's time to look directly at these energies, without naming or blaming, and use our yogi powers to  channel even our blackest moments from the messiness of reaction into the clarity and empowerment of reflection. From there, we can move forward into actions born of wisdom, not wildness.

One way we do this on the mat is, simply put, by no longer resisting the sensations we don't like, but by embracing them, or at least, softening our resistance against them to allow them to co-exist with the ones you are happier to feel. Say you're in a five-minute Pigeon Pose, and somewhere around the three-minute mark, your hips start grumbling, then maybe yelling out loud. You were enjoying your moment of Zen, and had the breath under control, but here comes the old familiar hips-on-fire feeling. To deal with it, you start breathing louder, thinking about the grocery list, pondering your fingernails, and turning your attention to anything but the discomfort. Yet, according to yogic wisdom, this might be a powerful place to explore.
What if, next time you found yourself in a battle of wills with those inner demons, you--well--just surrendered? Soften and widen the breath. Go gentler into that shadowy night. What happens when you stop fighting and start listening to what your dark side has been trying to teach you all along?

When you do this, the monsters inside lose their power to throw you off center, and you'll regain your inherent wholeness. The promise of yoga is unity, and by opening your heart to all of who you are, you will finally, completely, and nearly effortlessly, come home.
The goal yoga may be to become enlightened, or to keep the fires of awareness lit, but we cannot get there without recognizing, and in fact honoring, our darkness. Without developing the sweet embrace of understanding and mothering grace of compassion for all that we are, we will never become whole, but rather just play out our days, quite literally, half-lived.
Here's a variation on a common pose that includes a mudra, or sacred hand position. Get to know it in a way that will remind you, as it reminds me, that wholeness is waiting whenever we widen our idea of yoga to include all its forms.

Core Pose: Seated Spinal Twist with Gyan (or Jnana) Mudra
Gyan Mudra is the "Knowledge Seal," a hand position that helps focus your mind, heart, and spirit in a certain way. Start by uniting the tips of the index fingers and thumbs to symbolize the meeting of the awareness that comes from embracing your lower and higher energies. According to the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna was in Gyan Mudra when he imparted the teachings to Arjuna, urging him to use his humanity to express his divinity.

Come into your easy seat. Make Gyan Mudra with both hands. Inhale and lengthen your spine at center. Exhale and bring the right hand to the left knee or thigh, and weave your left arm behind your back. Depending on your flexibility, your left hand mudra might peek out around the side waist as you see mine doing here.

Take a few breaths here, facing your left side and opening the ribcage. Think of embracing your shadow side, the one you might hide from sight. Illuminate it with your attention and focused breath. Then reverse the pose and reflect on your active, bright, confident side for a few full breaths. 

When you're done with both sides, sweep your arms out and up, and when they meet overhead, bring the palms together in prayer, then down to front of your chest. Bow your head to your hands, a symbol of bringing yourself--all of yourself--into union.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In a recent Anatomy of Yoga class with Leslie Kaminoff, we watched a video that I'll never forget. And hopefully, neither will you. And, trust me, this all has a heck of a lot to do with your yoga practice! It features anatomist Gil Hedley explaining The Fuzz. You can watch it yourself, but be aware that it shows him working with a cadaver. Yet it's such an important piece of knowledge that I'd like to define this incredible concept for you, and you can choose to view it or not and still take it forward into your daily life.

Each night while we sleep, or any time we're still for long periods, like sitting in a car on a long road trip, our body begins to build collagen fibers. They look a little like cotton candy, and are just as sticky, causing friction between what should be smoothly sliding muscle surfaces. The end result is the stiffness you might feel in the morning getting out of bed or standing up after watching a three-hour movie.

Now, this is usually no big deal for those of us with a consistent movement practice. We feel creaky, we do yoga, we're good. But if you don't lubricate your joints and move your muscles to break up the fuzz regularly enough, it begins to knit together. Over time, the normal, subtle stiffness becomes limited movement, and even pain as the spider-webbed, bound body tries to move against resistance. Instead of confronting the fuzz, to avoid discomfort, many people simply move less. It becomes a vicious cycle that we often chock up to aging, but really is a cumulative, and mostly avoidable, buildup of fuzz.

Now, that's not to say that all physical slowdown is due to the fuzz, and if we simply stretch more, we will never feel the effects of age. But there is much more we can do to keep our bodies--and therefore our minds--as open, vital, and free as possible.

This parallels the yoga teaching about samskaras, the mental and emotional patterns that make up our conditioning. Samskara is a neutral word, indicating simply the actions we take that lead to certain results, but our habits can lead to either constructive or destructive outcomes, depending on our goals. The yogi seeks to strengthen those positive habits that maintain the full range of spiritual motion, and, importantly, dissolve the ones that have become diminishing and threaten to hold us back from reaching our potential of living from love, light, and joy. It's exciting to see science finding that the same lessons apply to our actual body as well. In fact, I see the two as interconnected, since continual mental and emotional stress, for example, leads almost unerringly to muscle tension, which is a direct physical manifestation of the samskara of anxiety or fear.

This is the mind-body connection the yogis have known about for centuries, and though sometimes yoga philosophy can get pretty obtuse, much of it can be translated into the real world as simply as you want to make it. That's nice to know when you're looking for tools you can apply today, right this moment, that can help you release what doesn't serve you, and keep, even amplify, the things that do.

Yoga doesn't have to be confusing. It's the art of living in balance, and taking actions that fuel your happiness, whatever that means for you. From there, you'll be inspired to offer some of that goodness to the world through your creative self-expression, and with a burning desire to help those who are still suffering. This is the road map the samskaras offer us: What kind of a life are you carving out through your choices? Is it shaping up as you'd like? If not, then start chipping away at another way of being until it more closely resembles your heart. The next time you're on the mat, or doing a few Sun Salutes just out of bed, you are not only solidifying healthy habits, you're creating the potential for new ones to take root in your life in so many ways.

Here's a great all-in-one pose for dissolving restrictive samskaras, and, with them, the fuzz. Do it in the morning just after you get out of bed, and you'll greet your whole day with more resiliency, flexibility, and freedom from all sorts of fuzz.

Core Pose: Low Lunge with Cat/Cow Variation

Come into a Low Lunge position with your right foot forward. Your front knee is stacked over the heel, not out in front of it, to avoid knee pressure. The back knee stretches comfortably behind the hip, not directly under it. The front foot and back knee are hip-distance, or about two fists-width apart.

Keep your hands on the floor, framing your front foot at first. Take a moment to back off the hips, since you don't want to sink too far into this pose. This can cause you to overstretch the connective tissue. Instead, lift out of the pose a bit until you can ground the foot and knee, draw in the low belly, and bring your torso upright, hands onto the knee or thigh.

You should now feel a stretch in the center of your muscles, not in the back hip crease and front sitting bone only. Your legs are also working to maintain the buoyancy of the pose.

Inhale, carve your tailbone long, and arch your spine. Keep the back of your neck long, and lift the chest sky-high. As you do this move, pull your shoulders back and slide your shoulder blades closer.

Exhale and round your back. Remember to keep the length in your lower back and roll more through the upper back and shoulder area. Gently lower your chin for a mindful neck stretch.

This pose is meant to lift through the back of your heart and spread the shoulder blades wider apart than it is to press out your lower back curve. So although you will activate the low belly fully on your exhalation, lift it in and up towards the chest, rather than squeezing it back towards the spine only.

Repeat the spinal motion with your breath for 5-10 rounds, then return to a Down Dog or Child's Pose, and repeat on the left side.

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It's my first week in a new town, having moved from NYC to Austin to focus on yoga, travel and all that it entails for me right now. It's slower here, no doubt, with a local news story lamenting that the new city Metro system doesn't have enough people riding it! I'll soon be parking my grateful derriere on one of the new, cushioned seats (with actual airspace between bodies) on my way to a yoga class.

I miss New York, but I'm interested to see what health and yogic possibilities lay ahead for me here. In this transitional period, where cardboard moving boxes vie for my attention along with daily responsibilities (as I write this blog, all my books sit next to me in U-Haul containers, awaiting their freedom), I can't help but feel, well, empty.

This is a specific kind of emptiness, not the windswept sensation after an emotional storm, or the primordial suspension of a deep meditation. It's more like a mixture of mourning and excitement, so evenly matched that it generates the time-standing-still feeling you have while retaining the breath after an inhale, or letting the exhale slide into a silent moment of nothingness before inspiring again.

And when I say, "inspiring," I mean breathing in and getting back to the creation of my life's work, my dharma.  This is the calm before the flood, when creative elements will sweep me forward. And I have to be ready to both direct the wave and ride it into places I can't foresee.

It is scary, yet wonderful. I wonder if this could be the Middle Path the Buddha spoke of, or the "field" between happiness and sorrow that Rumi wrote about so eloquently. I think of it as The Void, taken from the Runes, the ancient Viking stones etched with symbols used by those seeking clarity. Here's one definition of The Void from the Book of Runes:

The Unknowable represents the path of Karma--the sum total of your actions and their consequences, the lessons that are yours for this lifetime. And yet, this Rune teaches that the very debts of old karma shift and evolve as you shift and evolve. Nothing is predestined. What beckons is the creative power of the unknown.

We all hit The Void at one time or another, sometimes multiple times a day. It's that pause that seems hollow but that is actually pregnant with possibility, full of creative energy, or shakti, waiting for you to decide which action to take next to direct it into form.

The Void itself is often what ignites fear: of the unknown, of letting go, of being alone, of moving to that next level of ourselves, and risking failure and public ridicule to do it. Many people never cross The Void, because of what seems an impenetrable closed door of "I can't, I shouldn't" or "I'm not enough" blocking the entrance to the bridge across.
 
Yet when we practice yoga with as much determination off the mat as we do on it, when we get present and focus on what really matters--living completely, passionately, and without regret--we take destiny back into our own hands, the doorway magically opens, and, Void or not ... we leap.


Here's a pose that may help you understand how solid the Void actually is, as you begin to see that you're always where you stand, and from there, you can channel this veritable ocean of energy towards your biggest, brightest goals.

Core Pose: Ankle-to-Knee Chair(Eka Pada Galavasana Preparation)

This pose leads to taking flight in the arm balance of Eka Pada Galavasana, but for our purposes, we're going to start where we are. Running too fast into the Void can cause you to miss out on the information coming at you from the core, and from your environment, a conversation that needs your full attention.

Come to the front of your mat, feet hip-distance apart. Bend both knees and generate as much lift from your lower belly as from your lower back. Keep your spine long as you ground into your left foot and lift your right knee mindfully into your chest. Don't rush; rather, make every moment of this pose an opportunity to find balance again.

Once you're stable, cross your right ankle over your left knee. Roll the thigh outward so your right knee lowers, and sit down deeper. Bring your hands to the chest, palms together in anjali mudra, which celebrates your connection to the Divine, or universal energy. Offer your heart forward as the hips move back to anchor you in this new place of balance and freedom.

Take 5-10 breaths here, then return to Chair Pose, and fold forward over bent or straight legs for a few moments before repeating the balance on the other side.
 
 
 

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I left New York City on Monday with everything I own packed into a trailer, and set out for Austin, Texas, where I will be living for the foreseeable future. Though this was my decision, and I think a good one for my yoga career, my health, and my sanity, today it hit me: Everything I knew about my life in the city is now technically gone from me. My home, my neighborhood, my social scene, my yoga classes, even my local cafe have dissolved away as if in a dream, since I can no longer rely on them to help me feel grounded and secure.

I spent a decade getting to know friends, eating at my favorite places, living in an apartment I loved, and settling into a routine that comforted me.  The fact that I know that moving to Austin will be more productive for me doesn't change how floaty and surreal the world feels right now. Even the ground itself is moving, the highway spooling out and spinning away beneath my wheels.

When most everything external literally proves to be as impermanent as the Buddhists and yogis tell us it is, whether it's a big move we're going through, the loss of a relationship, a job or smaller transitions, like a well-worn pair of jeans finally kicking the bucket, there's always a sensation of shift.  These moments of ebb and flow can be unbalancing and scary.
 
Yoga teaches us about ideas that come from the things other people have lived. We turn to our teachers as guideposts, as those who have navigated similar situations, and emerged victorious using the tools of conscious awareness they then pass onto us. When our studies meet our personal life, and we are asked to walk the walk along this path, it's a whole new yoga practice, perhaps the hardest one of all. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather endure Warrior 3 until my leg gave out than go through a breakup or a radical move.
 
When we as seekers of center experience times where all that we thought was real turns to smoke and slips through our fingers, and we're dealing with the grieving process of moving from the past into the present, there's a powerful question I can think of that we might ask ourselves: This is happening. Now, what am I gonna do about it?

Believe me, when I was in the space of first realizing how much I'd just given up in order to follow my goals, one thing I could have done was totally, completely freak out. I felt the panic rising, as if I was that little bubble that's supposed to be in the middle of a carpenter's level, but someone tipped it, and my poor bubble was squished way up in the corner. In that moment could have turned back, canceled the whole crazy Austin idea, and settled back into what I knew.
 
Then again, my heart is calling me towards something different, and if yoga has taught me anything, it's to be able to endure uncomfortable sensations in the body, mind, and heart, long enough to get to that atman, the soul, or center of myself. Once there, I can more easily bring myself back to a leveling off place, and find that calm bubble of my core returning to center.
In fact, it's not our inner peace that wavers as life does, but our moveable parts: thoughts, emotions, expectations, perspectives, and even the physical body. When we remember that just because our outer world changes doesn't mean our innermost one has to, we dissolve the illusion that we are the constructs, and not the constant.

So, we can answer our own question by choosing to draw not from our first reactions, but from the stillness inside. Then we can act from equilibrium to move towards the next, though as yet unformed, part of our journey, with the integrity it takes to create the future experience we want to live most of all.
 
Here's the pose I did at the Virginia rest stop that helped me remember that ...

Core Pose: Natarajasana
 
If you see a statue of Nataraj, you'll notice he's standing on what appears to be a baby. Don't be alarmed--it's actually a demon. Nataraj is the cosmic dancer, and he exemplifies the power of riding the wave of universal energy rather than being consumed by the dark forces of doubt, insecurity, lack, and fear. Whenever I want to find my ground, and from there, let the joyful dance of life take me where I'm supposed to go next, I make sure to include Natarajasana in my practice.
 
Stand with feet hip-distance, about two-fists-width wide. Ground into your right foot, and bend your left knee so you can take hold of the outside of the left foot or ankle in your left hand.
As you draw your low belly up and lengthen the tailbone down to maintain space in the front and back of your lumbar curve, begin to kick your foot behind you as you reach the chest and right arm forward, or up to the sky as your balance and flexibility allows. The amount of backbend here is up to you, but if you stay rooted into your standing leg and foot you'll gain the stability and gravity this pose requires in order to inspire its freedom dance.

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Before I move to Austin on Monday, I thought it would be a good idea to pop up to Boston to teach a couple of workshops on Saturday. Why? Because I'm a glutton for punishment! No, actually, and perhaps strangely, I'm considering it a mini-vacation. A moving vacation, more specifically, since I get to ride a train and have nearly 8 hours to myself to do with what I wish. That's about 6.5 hours more than I've had in a long time.

On the trip so far, I've slept, read a magazine, planned classes, written this blog, caught up on emails, and simply stared out the window, enjoying the passing views of the verdant Hudson Valley.  This may sound like a lot, but these were all things I felt like doing, and they've brought me heartfelt pleasure. Virginia Woolf once said, "A woman must have money and a room of her own, if she is to write fiction."

I think that sentiment extends to both genders. No matter who you are, in order to create, you need resources. And one integral requirement of creative freedom is space.

This doesn't mean just a physical space, but some kind of spiritual "room"--an expanse within. This is where your spirit can dance with abandon as you gift yourself the chance to decide what to create next, instead of having your next move dictated by the pressures of time, relationships, and responsibility.

The funny thing is, we yogis learn that in order to expand, we must first draw inward. We have to contain ourselves, plug our pranic leaks, and stop existing solely in other people's rooms if we are to truly live in our own. This practice of self-regulating the balance between giving and receiving helps us stay focused not only on sharing with others, but on keeping what we need. In this way, we cultivate moksha, or being free from stress and suffering, but to me, also means having the freedom to access the soul, and from there, to express oneself completely and without regret.  

This is often what stepping onto the mat means to me. It's a magic carpet ride to new adventures as I remember and reveal the most vital parts of myself. No phones ring, no flight times loom, no partners or students need my attention. Sometimes I feel guilty for wanting this time to myself, this room of my own. After all, I love my loved ones and enjoy my job. As a centered-living teacher, I should be able to exist in peace within the chaos and pull of the outer world, right?

Well yes, and no. I find that in order to give the quality of attention that my projects and interactions deserve, I simply must take physical, mental, or emotional retreats at regular intervals. Otherwise, I risk burnout. Whether it's a nap, a walk in the park, a long bath, or a train ride, I'm careful to immerse in the luxury of being totally Self-centered. Then, once I'm ready to re-engage with the world, I have all the more to offer the next time an offering is called for.     

All too often, we wait until we are at the end of our ropes, frazzled and spent, before we'll use those vacation days or get a massage. Sometimes it takes illness or fatigue to force us to pause and get some much needed rest.

As practitioners of a conscious path, I invite each of us to do better than that. Let's look for daily opportunities to invoke freedom: to withdraw, conserve, and nourish our bodies, hearts, and minds. If chances for restoration are lacking in your life, build a room of your own with the tools gathered from your yoga practice: the wisdom to know when to go and when to stop, and the inner strength to create the boundaries needed to literally make peace with--and within--your life.

Core Pose: Ustrasana (Camel Pose) with Arm Stretch

Here's an asana that helps me invite moksha into my day by shaking off the constrictions of tension in my body or on some other level.

Kneel at the front of your mat with your knees slightly separated. Reach one hand back onto the floor or a block. Exhale fully and firm your belly. As you inhale, press your fingertips into the mat and circle your other arm up and back beside your ear. At the same time, lengthen your tailbone and pull your navel in and up as you lift your hips (a little or a lot, depending on your flexibility) and wave your spine towards a heart-opening backbend. Refrain from dropping your head back; keep the neck curve naturally long and supported. Exhale, return your hips to your heels, and bring the opposite hand behind you to repeat on the other side.

Aim for 5-10 repetitions of this pose then fold forward into Child's Pose for one minute.
 

 
 

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I just did something so major I have to write it down to believe it. I'm relocating from New York City where I've lived and taught yoga for nearly a decade, to Austin, Texas.
I've decided to relocate so that I can focus exclusively on my health, yoga, travel, and teaching for what I'm calling my yogi artist's retreat year. After that, I'll see where I am.

The requirements of my burgeoning yoga career are intense, and living in a place like New York City doesn't make things easy. For example, it took me 4 hours to drive 11 miles to the airport the other day, only to miss my flight. Total cost: $1,600. Austin has a shuttle that goes from my new apartment to the airport in 10 minutes. Total cost: 50 cents. I kid you not.

Now, don't get me wrong. Just like the T-shirts say, I (heart) New York. That's why I've lived there for so long. But it's time for a change, and specifically, I'm interested in what will happen to my yoga trajectory when I steep in it fully for a good period of time. This will be a Dharma Immersion, if you will.

At first, I was torn about whether or not to make such a radical move. So I practiced what I teach. I put fears and judgments aside and thought about what would serve my ultimate goals the best. Right now, I require ease of travel; a location that is equidistant to both coasts and the flyover states; an affordable apartment with enough space for me to film my YouTube and training videos; and a community that values health, good food, and good yoga. A creative environment and a lack of traditional winter weather is just icing on the cake.  

For these reasons and more, Austin was an obvious choice for me. The cool thing is, once I chose it, I was surrounded by so many universal green lights that I have to believe the signs are pointing me on the road I'm meant to take now.

Before I was a yogi, I would have shut myself down before I ever began this journey. I probably would never have left the safety of the Midwest to try my luck in the Big Apple, or taken any of the risks that have brought me to where I am now. Yoga teaches us how to step out of our own way, remove the veils of uncertainty, and quiet the voices that tell us we're insane to do what we are being called toward. If we can turn down the volume of our fears, it's possible to hear that still, powerful whisper of our satya, or truth; that core voice that can move us toward transformation.

We do this through cultivating a regular asana practice so our limiting patterns don't build up and slow us down. We learn to sit in meditation and listen intently until we hear only our inner guide and not the confusing cacophony that surrounds it. We implement our lessons off the mat, do our best to be brave, and lead by example into our next incarnation of who we want to be.

Most of all, when grounding is called for, we ground, and when flying beckons, we find out how wide our wingspan really is. The yogi is a shapeshifter, an energetic alchemist who uses the raw materials of experience, relationship, self-knowledge, and prana (life force) to create magic out of what others see as a static reality.

Is it the perfect choice for me to take a year in Austin? Perhaps not. Staying in the city has its benefits, too. But we can always go back to what we know. So why not try going forward? Yes, it takes a big leap of faith sometimes. But we yogis have that in spades, y'all. So what is your dharma calling you to do next?

Core Pose: "First Eye" Goddess

This asana is one I teach and do whenever I want to envision my next move. It stimulates the forehead center, the seat of our intuition, and expands perspective away from the constriction of fear. This is why I call it the First Eye. It's a primary tool of perception, your mind's eye, and keeping it wide open will serve you well as you navigate your next steps along your path.

Sit on your mat. Bring both feet together, knees open wide. With a long spine, tilt your sacrum and top hip crests forward as you bring your elbows onto the floor or two yoga blocks. Place your thumbs inside your eyebrows, just above your nose. Allow your forehead to release towards the thumbs even as you maintain the open hips and spinal alignment of the rest of the pose.

Breathe here for 1-2 minutes, and then come into knees-together Child's Pose for a few breaths to counterbalance the asana.
 

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I'm in Austin, Texas, and last night took a lovely yoga class at Black Swan Yoga. Hillary, the instructor, said something so simple, it was profound. After a difficult Eka Pada Koundinyasana (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya) variation, which we were attempting during heat and humidity that created a slip-n-slide situation, we returned to a democratic Downward-Facing Dog. As we recovered, Hillary said, "If you were struggling in that last pose, then it's good it's over. You don't have to think about it anymore, because it's not happening now."

I know that I've said and heard countless variations on that theme in yoga classes I've taught and attended. Yet something about the straightforwardness with which Hillary spoke made it seem so simple to just let go of the past and along with it, all the weighty entanglements of suffering, guilt, and instant replays.

Trying to change the past by keeping it running on a constant mental and emotional loop can end up frittering away your prana, or life force. Likewise, when you jet off into any scenario--imaginary or already played-out-- than what is really happening in the here and now, I call it time-traveling.  We time-travel on the mat too, like when you mentally tell off an ex-boyfriend while in Crow Pose or go over your grocery list in Savasana.

The danger in always traveling into what has been or what might never be, is that you lose the sensitivity it takes to stay in communication with your core wisdom. That root awareness can only reveal itself when you drop the baggage you're carrying and turn all your attention toward accessing the tools you have right where you stand.

At first when Hillary made that statement, I thought, "Yeah, easy to say, Sister, but try doing it." Then I remembered one day a few years back. I was standing in the subway, having recently gone through a major breakup, and my heart was hurting. The world seemed colorless and tasteless, and still, everything stung.

For no reason at all, I wondered why I was feeling so bad. Was it inevitable? Or was it a choice I was making?  I decided to see if I could put my broken heart on hold, enjoy a day out in the big city, and come back to the processing part later on.

In literally one instant, my pain disappeared. Gone, nada, zip. I felt free, light, and happy to be alive and experiencing all that was in front of me. I had a wonderful time before, a little while later, I decided to re-enter the growth process, a sensation that would never again be as cutting or make me feel as helpless as when I thought I had no control over it. I didn't know that it was possible to allow myself to step into the present so fully as to be immune from the poison of confusion and regret.

I've employed this skill many times since, and you can, too. It's as close as a decision, as gentle as an allowing, and as natural as relaxing into being who you want to be, right this minute. Yogis call this process dharana, or concentration. It requires pratyahara, sense withdrawal, another yogic skill of reigning yourself in from obsessively poring over the past or future, and from leaking your chi, or energy.

I also call it core power, and when you practice using it to become victorious over the time-traveling mind and tidal heart, you will see more clearly, and without judgment, how you wish to proceed in the only time period that you can do anything about--the one you're in. Sometimes even teachers need teachers to remind us of this.

Here's a pose variation that can quickly return you to the present; one that gets you grounded plus gives you a taste of all the strength and vitality you hold at center. From there, no matter how life comes at you, you can choose to come right back out at it with compassion, wisdom, and grace.

Core Pose: "Core" Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)

Stand with your feet about two fists-width apart. Bend your knees and reach your right fingertips diagonally out away from your right foot, wider than the right shoulder, and press them into the mat. At the same time, press your right foot into the ground strongly. On an exhalation, draw your left knee into your chest using your low belly to draw in and up toward your sternum. Begin to stack your left hip on top of the right and unfurl your left arm to the sky.

Inhale as you maintain the tone in your abdominal muscles, and begin to lengthen your bent, left leg out behind you until it is parallel to the floor. Your bottom leg can remain bent or, if your flexibility allows, straighten it.

Keep your standing leg firm and foot rooted even as you draw into and express from your center in the pose.

Do 3-5 repetitions on this side then bring both feet back down into the starting position. Take a gentle forward fold, clasping opposite elbows. Find your Earth-to-core connection and repeat the pose on the left side.

 

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